[CF-Devel] Re: Sorry

[Peter Mardahl]

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     Okay let me rephrase my previous email. I am not going to waste 4 or more
     
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     weeks attempting to rewrite the whole code so a Q can wield two weapons,
     
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     and some weapons are two handed. As I have previously stated I consider
     
     
And clean up the attack code, which you said is ugly and needs it.

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     After almost two weeks I am now told that basically all my ideas are
     
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     worthless is not something which puts on in a particualarly good mood =|. 
     
     
Please.  Your email on the topic is dated Dec. 1.
Andreas's reply was dated Dec. 5.  Mine was Dec 6.  I do not think
we left you hanging for an unreasonable time after you put the
idea up.

Honestly, I thought the 2-weapons idea was a cool one at first,
too.  However, after Andi's mail, I saw the many downsides and difficulties
of it, and I'd rather see these dealt with BEFORE we hack it into
the code.

Now, you say that we can restrict weapon use by weight.  I do not like
this idea, because it seems like I can always use an enhanced dagger
or two and have quite an effective and abusive combination, better
than could reasonably be expected with shields, or a dagger + taifu,
which would double as a shield.

The fact is that weapons in this game are much, much sexier than
shields:  they do damage, add stats, add protections, attunements,
sometimes add ac/armour, sp++ and hp++, and slayings.  Shields
typically only add protections, ac, and armour, and occasionally
a Cha stat.

I simply can't imagine myself using a shield ever again if I can
be using a Taifu of Valriel +3str +3dex +9 ac +10dam slaying
demon weighing 1 unit instead.

Unless I could find a shield which would do +3str +3dex and +9ac
with a couple of protections: impossible currently.

So, you say, let's make that shield possible, so everyone doesn't
immediately forget about shields. Well, don't you see that
either way, this adds a great deal to the power of the player?
He can get more goodies.  The balance of the game is...  off....

I see your proposal as analogous to this:
"Let's allow 2 rings on each hand if a player doesn't use
an amulet."  I just can't see anyone walking around with an
amulet on after that:  unless we make an amulet worth giving up
two rings for.  

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     As Mark has said,
     
     
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     " So at this point, I think discussion is still good.  I don't have a big
     
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     problem with people not using shields - I've played some games where you
     
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     can use two weapons (and not a shield), and it was certainly a choice on
     
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     whether I wanted to do that or not."
     
     
And I say to Mark, in those games, were weapons as sexy as they
are in crossfire, compared to shields?

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     In every game I hgave played where multiple weapons have been able to be
     
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     wielded (thinks of Diablo II), it is usually alot better to go with the
     
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     shield. This was how I was planning to set it up, put enough negatives
     
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     that it is much better to get that extra defense from the shield.
     
     
So basically no one ever used two weapons?  Then if you follow this approach
in Crossfire, then no one will use two weapons....except.... Q's.

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     "Swinging two swords around just ain't "realistic"!!!"
     
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     Let me assure you Pete, that that is more than realistic. Barbarians were
     
     
Do I need to make the point again that arguing realism in crossfire
is silly?


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     code so that a certain weight level must be observed before a player
     
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     can wield, the values I suggested were rough. If they are to high... we
     
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     TAKE THEM DOWN!. How hard is that? To tell the truth I plan to just write
     
     
And my objection is that no matter how far you take them down, I
can still find a combination of two weapons which will be superior
to any shield/weapon combo:  unless we inflate shields.  But once
we start inflating things, where do we stop?  -->  (Because of
the choice of two weapons or weapon + inflated shield, monsters are
weaker compared to players....  Let's inflate monsters...  Oops,
now spellcasting is disadvantaged.  Let's enhance spells...)

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     Concluding, Pete, I have alot of trouble understanding how you can go from
     
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     wanting to remove caps, and taking out tables to declaring that something
     
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     shouldn't be added because it will change the balance. I don't get upset
     
     
Let me explain.  Removing caps on stats might lead a player to pick some
stat to specialize in, increasing character diversity and fun.  Allowing
two weapons would lead everyone to using two weapons.  Removing caps
on levels and hp allows the game to be open ended, but leaves things
in balance at low levels.  Removing the cap on the number of weapons 
changes the relative balance of chars/monsters at every level.

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     What I get upset about is your repeating of information I have already
     
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     found solutions for, why is it so hard to comprehend balancing a few
     
     
I have not found your solutions satisfactory.

Mark's come up with some better solutions, such as setting a flag
so that abusive combinations are not possible.  However, any
mapmaker can neglect to set a flag:  I am not completely satisfied
with this solution either.

How about this?  Two weapons are allowed if one of the weapons
is COMPLETELY mundane.  No special attacktypes.  No protections,
ac bonuses, attunements, magic+, or whatnot.  I'd have no
objection to that.

Of course, people will completely stop using this second weapon
once they have a nice shield.

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     By all your problem finding it seems to me you are not being constructive
     
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     rather dogmatic. Take this how you will, I don't enjoy one bit having
     
     
Is objecting to change I see as destructive.... constructive?  And
there's some room for dogma in the world:  "Evolution is the most credible
theory of biology."  "The earth revolves about the sun"  "Balance is
important in crossfire"  "Doing less work is better than doing more work
to achieve similar results."  

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     items? The majority of them should be okay anyway and it is the code that
     
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     will balance it, not really the items... Again I have already said, please
     
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     don't tell me the problems, I know them already, try and find SOLUTIONS.
     
     
Well, I HAVE proposed solutions.  Before this email, I proposed:

1)  Restrict two weapon use to Q's.
and implicity:
2)  Nip the problem in the bud by not doing all this work.

Now I've added:
3)  Allow only completely mundane second weapons.

You've found my solutions about as satisfactory as I have found yours.

Regards,

PeterM